The long-awaited interview of Meghan Markle and Prince Harry with Oprah Winfrey could deal a major blow to the British monarchy – much worse than the disastrous settlement of Prince Andrew in the middle of the Jeffrey Epstein saga, say royal experts.
Author Pauline Maclaran said she believes Prince Andrew’s infamous interview about his friendship with the late convicted pedophile Epstein would fade compared to the Duke and Duchess’s upcoming CBS special.
“I think it’s a bigger danger than Prince Andrew’s collapse interview,” Maclaran told The Associated Press at Oprah’s headquarters.
“I think Meghan will get a lot of sympathy, especially from the American public, for her unbearable position,” Maclaran said.
Maclaran, author of “Royal Fever: The British Monarchy in Consumer Culture,” said the CBS interview would threaten the stature of the “firm,” the Palace, “staining the royal mystique” and making the blue blood look like celebrities.
Regals rarely give interviews, and when they do, questions are usually hyper-focused on specific issues. Freer interviews often went wrong, such as Andrew’s meeting with the BBC in 2019, in which he failed to apologize for being friends with Epstein or showing empathy for the funder’s victims. Andrew relinquished his royal duties shortly after the interview.
But now that I’m officially post-Megxit and living in California, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex don’t seem to have anything to lose by offering TV chat.
In a video of Oprah’s interview released on Friday, 39-year-old Markle said she was finally “ready to speak” after being hidden by royal aides.
“As an adult, who has lived a truly independent life, to then enter this construction that is different from what I think people imagine it to be, it is truly liberating to be able to have the right and the privilege in certain ways to say Yes, ”Markle explained in the interview.
Other pre-released videos have shown that the duchess will accuse the royal family of “perpetuating falsehoods” against her and Harry, 34.
The couple claimed that they were victims of a “turmoil campaign” by family members, after a British newspaper published accusations that Markle assaulted the palace staff and that Queen Elizabeth ordered an investigation into the allegations.
Regardless of what is said in the interview, Penny Junor, who has written several books about royals, predicted that things would get ugly on all sides.
“It’s just a mess,” she said. “I don’t think there will be winners in it.”
With Post Wires